Dead Rising 3: The Cure
by FallOutRising117
Summary: In the aftermath of Los Perdidos, Nick learns just how important he is to mankind. But the cure was just the beginning.
1. Chapter 1

"Nick." I heard a soft, faint voice. "Hey, get up. Nick?" My eyes fluttered open as Annie's face came into view.

"Rude…" I muttered with a faint smile as I pulled myself up. "Good thing you're too damn cute for me to care." She chuckled as I kissed her on the cheek and then slumped back into the cozy embrace of the plane seat. I saw her father in the corner of my eye. He was focusing on flying the plane, but still had a faint sense of anger in his eyes.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered. "Would you two please save it?" I knew he probably wasn't the happiest at the moment. After two long years of searching, he had just reunited with Annie…or Katey, as he prefers to call her by her first name…only to find a guy he doesn't know in a relationship with her. I guess that's a good reason to be skeptical of me, but I think he knew I was good at heart. Better than the last asshole she was with, that's for sure.

"We're landing soon," Annie said. "Dad wanted to run you and Dick through the procedure." I turned behind me and saw Dick half asleep, taking up the whole back row of the plane.

"Whatever," he muttered. "Soon as I can, I'm ditchin' you guys. I gotta get back to my home and reunite with my buds." I smirked at him.

"By buds, you mean smelly, fat, redneck truckers?" I asked him. Annie and I laughed pretty hard. I think I even got a smirk out of Chuck.

"Well, some of em'," he replied. "I'm really just lookin' forward to gettin' the hell away from Romeo and Juliet and the hard ass over there that slightly reminds me of Elvis."

How many days had it been? Not that long before I was fixing up cars, getting my ass chewed out by my strict, but loving boss, Rhonda. And now? I'd killed…a lot. But that's not what scared me the most. The fact that I had become _good _at killing is what brought a chill down my spine. Not just the undead…but the living as well. Back to the present, I turned back around to the front of the plane. Isabela was sitting next to Chuck, in front. I forgot she was there, she didn't talk much. I didn't really know what to make of her.

"Here's the plan," Chuck began. "In case you two boneheads forgot, we're going to my place, in Spring Valley. There's an old abandoned car lot there. We should have enough space to land."

"Should?" I interrupted. Chuck looked to me.

"If we land anywhere else, the cops will know. We'll be arrested, and if they find out she is Isabela Keyes…"he looked in her direction. "… Then you can forget about a cure." I stubbornly looked to Annie, then looked back and nodded my head.

"As soon as we land," Chuck continued, "We need to hide the plane and get out of there. It's still night, so we should be able to get in unnoticed." Chuck looked to Dick. "You're free to go where you want once we're out of there, but you can't discuss anything about the cure. No one can find out until it's ready." Dick slid back in his seat.

"Thank Christ," he said. I looked back at Annie, who had her arm wrapped around mine.

"We did it," I said to her. She smiled, and pressed her lips against mine.

**SPRING VALLEY, NEVADA**

I felt the burn of a needle going through my arm, and seeing blood fill up the syringe. I didn't like that. I had seen enough blood for one life.

"I need to synthesize this," Isabela said quietly. "I'll need some time; you should all get some rest while I work." I turned to see Chuck staring into the television. It was Channel 6 Action News, showing a massive mushroom cloud that had settled. In the corner, I read 'LOS PERDIDOS, CALIFORNIA'. In a way, I was sad. I grew up in that city, and served the people there for the longest time. I was the best mechanic in town, I knew tons of people that I talked to everyday. People who are gone now. Then I remembered.

"God, I hope Rhonda and Gary made it out of there," I said. Chuck turned to me.

"I've known Gary for the better part of a decade," he said to me. "There's no way that fat bastard didn't make it out. You have my word." I smiled and turned to Annie, who was slumped on the couch next to me. "Okay you two," Chuck started. "Better get some rest. We have a big day tomorrow, and it's already 3 AM. "Katey, you can sleep in your room, and Nick, you get the couch."

"Uh, sir?" I began. I looked at Annie, then back at him. "I was actually thinking…" he turned his menacing stare directly into my eyes.

"No." He said, and that was that. He quietly went upstairs. Isabela had already gone into the office with some of her equipment she got from the lab back at Los Perdidos. I turned back to Annie.

"Sorry Nick, it's gonna take some time for him to warm up to you," she whispered.

"You know," I replied. "This is the first alone time we've ever had." She smiled as I pulled her close to me, and we were silent for a while. I looked into her eyes and saw that she was troubled. I dared to bring it up to her.

"Look, I'm sorry about Red—"She quickly glanced up at me.

"Don't say his name." She said sternly. I knew I needed to stop. They were friends after all, partners for a time. It must have been hard on her that he was so quick to turn on his family for money. But I knew he was bad news the moment I saw him. I knew he couldn't be trusted. So I did what had to be done in the end.

**5 HOURS LATER**

I felt the sunshine on my face as I left the land of sleep. I was in a warm bed, and could feel Annie's embrace against my chest, still sound asleep. I made a long yawn and slowly opened my eyes, hoping to see her beautiful face. Instead, I saw Chuck's stern glare.

"Shit—" I jolted upward and quickly fell out of the bed. I was wearing only my mechanic themed underpants.

"WHAT IN GOD'S NAME WERE YOU DOING WITH MY DAUGHTER?!" Chuck's intense scream attacked my freshly woken mind. I looked down at Annie, who quickly pulled the covers up and scrambled to find her shirt.

"Sir, I…" I said quietly. "I swear it was nothing—"

"If you weren't the cure for mankind," Chuck interrupted. " I would SNAP YOUR NECK RIGHT HERE." Chuck said, inching closer to me. "Now get the hell up, both of you. Isabela is waiting." As soon as he walked out of the room, I scrambled to my coveralls and slipped back into them as quickly as possible. Annie went through her wardrobe and put on a pink sweatshirt and blue jeans.

"Not really your look," I said, smiling. She looked up at me.

"It was a long time ago," she said, walking past me as she grabbed a zombrex syringe from her bag. "Hopefully this is the last zombrex I'll ever need," she said, jabbing the needle into her arm.

We were all circled around the kitchen table. Isabela pulled a syringe out of her lab kit.

"I managed to extract and synthesize what I believe to be the formula that permanently dissolves the larvae," she began. "I then mixed it with the normal zombrex formula, which should render the infection dead." She then looked up. "But it needs to be tested." Annie held out her arm, but Chuck grabbed it.

"Honey," he said. "We don't know what this will do. I can't let you be the lab rat here." Annie jerked her arm out of Chuck's stern grasp.

"Dad… I have to do this," she said hopefully. She held her arm out to Isabela again, who extracted a dose of the formula into the syringe and gently pressed it into Annie's arm. She didn't squirm or anything. She'd taken enough needles in her life. When Isabela pulled it out, Annie looked at her arm, where the bite mark her mother gave her 13 years prior still remained. She began to grown in pain and fell to the floor.

"ANNIE!" I yelled and kneeled beside her. Chuck quickly followed. I checked for a pulse. It was slowing. "No…" I said. "Please God…" Then something caught my eye. The bite mark was fading. Annie slowly opened her eyes. She looked at her arm again, now completely bare of any marks.

"Goodbye, mom," she muttered, slowly placing her head back down. I grabbed a pillow and placed it under her head, giving her a kiss as I stood up.

"It works…" I said. I turned to Isabela. "I really works." Isabela smiled.

"I must get back to the office to create more doses. I have the formula now, Nick. I can synthesize the cure, I don't need any more blood." She walked away.

"I have some old friends I need to call," Chuck said, walking out of the room. I sat down, staring at Annie, who was still recovering. I remembered the last week. Red, Hemlock… the people who almost killed me, who almost destroyed the one chance for a cure to mankind. And then something else hit me. How important was I? The cure was in my blood. I was some kind of chosen one or some shit. Of course, I wouldn't get any credit. I was just the clueless test subject. Isabela was the one who successfully created the cure. If only I had known at the time how far she had went to make that clear…


	2. Chapter 2

I felt the burning sensation in my arm start to fade away. Like when you put medicine on a burned patch of skin; the pain was finally seizing. I slowly opened my eyes and looked that the bite mark on my arm was gone. I said my final goodbyes to my mother, and then laid my head back down. I woke up back in my room, with Nick sitting on my bedside.

"Welcome back," he said, resting his hand on my shoulder. I wanted to say something, but I could still barely move. "Your reaction must have come from the virus," he began. "After years of lying dormant it was suddenly wiped from your system." I turned onto my back and sighed in relief. _No more Zombrex, _I thought to myself. After years of pain, years of extreme close calls and painful side effects, it was gone. I heard my dad on the phone, walking down the hall.

"Look, I know your busy… you need to come here now. I can't discuss it on the phone." He waited, and then sighed in annoyance. "I know we haven't talked in years. Barely at all sense the aftermath of the facility. But Frank—you have to see this. It could change your life, change the lives of thousands." I watched as Chuck then hung up the phone and walked into my room.

"Who was that?" Nick asked him. Dad looked at me, smiled, and then returned to Nick.

"That," he began, "Was none other than Frank West."

Frank West. I had only met him once; at a huge event that dad took me too not long after Fortune City. He received an official apology there, for being blamed for causing the outbreak when in reality it was that big celebrity Tyrone King. Dad always told me there was more to it than that, but he didn't have enough proof. Stacey was there too, and everyone else I knew. Chuck was awarded a 5 year supply of Zombrex for the trouble he had been through. Of course, he gave Frank half of it, as much as he had protested. Then, things got really nice for a while. Chuck and Stacey started dating, and I actually got to go to school, something dad never let me do. I met a lot of friends, and for a good few years, I was doing fine. Then Chuck and Stacey got married, and I thought I finally had a mother again. But then, when I was 13, the Zombrex chips were announced. It seemed like a blessing; free instant Zombrex. But dad didn't trust it. I remember hearing them fight.

"Chuck, you have to do this!" Stacey yelled.

"Oh, please, don't tell me you want to give in to the government too!" He responded.

"I know the chips are GPS tracked. But it's the law, and we have to follow it."

"You know what they're capable of! You saw it in Fortune City! They could easily set the chips off, it could all be a huge set up!"

"HOW ELSE ARE YOU GOING TO GET ZOMBREX, CHUCK? HOW MUCH MORE DO YOU HAVE? AND IF IT BECOMES ILLEGAL, THEN HOW COUL YOU POSSIBLY AFFORD IT WITH THE LOW CLASS JOB YOU HAVE?"

Dad stared in silence. Then he slowly walked away, muttering the words "Fuck You". He almost never said words like that, and never to Stacey. In the years following, he started doing terrible things. Trying to get Zombrex for me, keeping me from getting chipped, he became a crook. Stacey left him soon after his sudden transformation, and I hadn't seen her sense. By 2019 I couldn't take it anymore. The feeling of guilt, that it was my fault he had been through all of this, and so I packed my things and ran. I took all of the Zombrex with me, enough to last me a month, and set out for Los Perdidos, the farthest city from Spring Valley in the West direction. It was there that I quickly met more people like me, illegals who didn't want to deal with the government's bullshit. I noticed I was changing as well, dying black highlights into my hair, dressing in a more gothic look, I guess it came with the territory. Red was their leader, he was only a little older than me, and there was something about him that just attracted me. Maybe it was his sense of leadership, I don't know. I knew he was interested in me though. We tried to make it work, but as I got to know him more, I realized he was the exact opposite of what my dad always told me to be. I didn't like that. Even after I broke things off with him, he continued to persist, right up to his death. But it's okay, because then I met someone who was exactly like how my dad told me to be. I knew he had an interest in me the moment we met too. I was stealing a car for the illegals, and he was the mechanic who fixed it up and brought it to me, thinking I was the owner. He had already asked me out for coffee when the zombies came. In that first three days of hellish nightmares, I stayed with him, because I felt safer. I left to find my friends, but I knew he would find me, and he did. The more I talked to him, the more I felt he was… special. And now here he was, caring for me in my room, after giving me a better gift than anyone could ever imagine: a cure.


	3. Chapter 3

**HUBBURD GULTCH, NEVADA**

It had been five years sense I last spoke to Chuck Greene. We stayed in touch after Fortune City, but I didn't really want anything to do with him after word got to me that he became a thug. Naturally, I didn't expect to get a call from him ever again.

"Chuck, I've got too much shit goin' on right now to drive all the way to Spring Valley. I already have a public speaking event in Colorado that I gotta be at in a few days. This is my only time to be at home for a month."

"I know we haven't talked in years. Barely at all sense the aftermath of the facility. But Frank—you have to see this. It could change your life, change the lives of thousands." Chuck sounded sincere. I looked in the mirror and saw what that god damn drug had done to me over the years. My hair practically greyed out, my face wrinkled to hell. I looked older than I actually was. Ever sense Willimette it's been that way.

_Could it be? _I thought to myself. Did he actually find… no. No way.

"Chuck, I can't unless you tell me what it is." I said. "I'm not going on another trip I may not even need. I know you gave me that nice stack of zombrex all those years ago, but I'd say I've paid you back well enough already." Chuck suddenly hung up. I sighed and went over to my trophy shelf. My Pulitzer prize…my camera, the same one I took to Willamette, which was heavily outdated and broken at this point…and my locket, the one Isabela gave to me before those government bastards dragged her away. Then my phone beeped. I opened it and saw a text message from Chuck. It was Morse code: and read only one word:

-.-. ..- .-. .

I knew Morse code, memorized it after Willamette. But I couldn't believe what I read.

CURE

I grabbed my jacket, got in my car and headed for Spring Valley. The whole way there, I couldn't help but think I was dreaming.

**SPRING VALLEY, NEVADA**

I approached Chuck's home, I knew it was his. He had a lot of hide outs, but this was always his house and he swore to never abandon it. His wife picked it out, after all. I knocked on the door, and the person who opened it didn't look like I remembered. He had longer, unkempt hair, a grizzled mustache, and honestly, looked like shit.

"Chuck Greene," I said, shaking his hand. "It's a pleasure." I walked in and saw on the couch a kid, two of them actually, boy and a girl. The boy looked Hispanic, probably early 20s, and had a number '12' on his neck, the girl was blonde, looked to be around 18, and was leaning on him, both fast asleep.

"Is that your daughter?" I asked. Chuck nodded, and then turned to the other one.

"That's Nick," he said, starting to grin. "And he's immune." I quickly looked back to Chuck in disbelief. But before I could say anything, I heard a familiar voice behind me.

"Hello, Frank West." I turned around and saw Isabela Keyes standing, holding a syringe filled with what looked like Zombrex. I immediately hugged her, something I had never gotten to do.

"It's been too long," I said, letting go of her. She smiled and held up the syringe.

"Too long is right," she said. I knew what that syringe was, and I knew what she meant. I didn't say anything else, didn't question. I held out my arm and she placed it into my wrist, like she had done with the first Zombrex dose 15 years prior in Willamette. I felt a burning sensation, then a settling feeling, a feeling of happiness. Something I hadn't experienced in years.

"I didn't just invite you here to cure your infection, Frank," Chuck said. I turned and faced Chuck. "We need your help to get it out to the public," he continued. "If the government finds out what it is too early, they'll confiscate it and arrest all of us. Hemlock may be dead but he still has friends."

Hemlock. I remember that bastard. I met him once, when I went to see the president. I later did extensive research and came to the conclusion that he was the one in charge of it all, Santa Cabeza, Willamette, Phenotrans, he was always there, pulling the strings.

"He's dead?" I asked. Chuck nodded. "We were all held up in Los Perdidos when the outbreak went down. Nick here realized his immunity and we escaped together." I looked back at him, still sound asleep, cuddled up with who I believed to be girlfriend.

"That kid," I started. "He's the cure for mankind? What we've been looking for?"

"Do you remember the orphans, Frank?" Isabela asked me. I turned back to her.

"Yeah," he said. "I still wonder to this day what significance that had."

"He's one of them," Isabela began. "When Carlito made the orphans, he didn't want to create something that couldn't be stopped; so he made one of them immune."

_That evil genius, _I thought.

"Thank God for that," I said. "I know some people who have connections. They can get the cure out and distributed before the government has a chance to stop them. Once it's out, you can come forward as the creator," I told Isabela. She made a wicked grin on her face, something that seemed really off. But I couldn't complain. I was cured. And soon the whole world would be to.

Someone else suddenly knocked on the door. Chuck hesitated, then slowly walked to the front, and opened the door. A redheaded woman was standing there, arms crossed.

"Hi Stacey," Chuck said reluctantly.


	4. Chapter 4

My heart sank as I heard the door knock. Kind of like when you're a kid, and you're about to talk to a girl you like. I slowly turned to the door, and crept forward. Thinking about how terrible I had become, how much of a burden I was on her. How she deserved so much better. Still, I reached out to the door handle, slowly turned the knob, and let the door open. There she was. Arms crossed, in that posture she always had when she was confused or angry.

"Hi, Stacey," I said reluctantly. She stared at me for a few seconds, looking like she wanted to talk, like she had longed to see me. But that expression quickly withered as she snapped back into reality.

"What do you want, Chuck?" She said, returning to her blank stare. I stood motionless for a few moments.

"I…" I turned to Frank and Isabela. "…_We _have something to show you." Stacey walked in, and shook Frank's hand.

"Frank West," she said. "It's a pleasure to see you again." Then she turned to Isabela. "Not sure I know who you are though," she said, holding out her hand. Isabela didn't hold her and out. She knew how Stacey would react.

"I'm Isabela Keyes." Stacey suddenly backed away very quickly. Her expression turned from blank to confused and surprised.

"Chuck," She said, turning to me. "What's going on here?" I paused to think of how to tell her. Then I just said it.

"We found a cure." I couldn't help but grin as I saw her face light up. She turned to Isabela, grabbed her hand a shook it.

"Thank you, thank you so much. I have so many questions for you…" I knew that Stacey would return to her old ways the moment I told her what we had made. I was happy, for the first time in years. But I knew that that wouldn't last. Stacey turned to me.

"Where is it? How did you get it?" She asked, curiosity filling her eyes. I didn't say anything, just pointed in Nick's direction.

Nick Ramos. I hated the kid, he had just met my daughter like, what, a week before? And I already walk in on him in bed with her. Of course, it probably wasn't anything I would need to worry about… I had no idea what they were doing but I had a feeling Nick was smart enough to not take it too far. So I didn't him, that was a definite, but I respected him. Stacey didn't let him keep sleeping. She approached the couch, where he and Katey were sound asleep, and shook him awake. Nick jumped up, startled. He looked around, and then tapped Katey's shoulder.

"Annie," he said to her. "Get up. There are more people here." Katey grumbled, but hen eventually gave in and let Nick up. He shook Stacey's hand.

"Nice, to meet you, I'm Nick," he said. But he seemed distracted. He was looking over at the _other _guest. Still shaking Stacey's hand, he used his other and pointed at him. "Is that _Frank West_?" He asked. Stacey smiled and nodded, and let go of Nick's grasp. He approached Frank curiously.

"I already know who you are kid," He said. But Nick had some questions for him.

"I remember seeing you on television when I was young," he said. "But you haven't really been on sense then." Frank nodded.

"Yeah, after Fortune City, things got kinda… screwed up, I guess."

Screwed up was an understatement. Frank and I left that facility hoping to come back into the world as heroes, to stop those bastards from doing harm and getting another company to make Zombrex. But it didn't go as planned. When we were leaving the facility, I told him 'Nobody is gonna take our word for what was going on in that place'. I was entirely right. The only evidence the court would except was the one proving TK caused the outbreak. The other evidence, the proof that Phenotrans was responsible for it all, they said was "unsubstantial". I didn't bother to keep going, but Frank did. He began protesting constantly about the government and their large corporate puppets. So much so that he began taking on public peaking completely. Most people thought he was crazy, he got the support of CURE, but when that study was released to the public, the one that proved zombies are dead and whoever was in their body is completely gone, CURE couldn't take the criticisms anymore. They were forced to shut down. That took a toll on Stacey. Around the same time, Frank's rumor spreading about Phenotrans got so large that they were forced to call bankruptcy. That was the closest we ever got to a victory. Frank withered, as did I, and I hadn't heard from him ever again. Not until now, that is.

"I can help you with this spreading of the cure," Stacey said. "We can make this work, we can finally end this." Stacey smiled as if her sudden victory was overwhelming.

"Yes," Isabela said. "This cure will come out, and I—" Isabela paused for a second. "…WE will be applauded for a victory." Katey got up.

"But it's not about that," she began. "It's about the truth, and the people. Imagine the world without those chips, without the illegals… the world can return to a time without zombies."

But then something hit me.

"What about the chips," I said. "What if we can't prove that Hemlock was behind it?"

"I've got that covered," Katey said. She pulled out some tape recorders out of her bag. "That crane had a surveillance camera. I got the entire harvest on camera." I smiled and hugged her.

"That's my girl," I said. I didn't let go. I had just realized, I had my little girl back. I was finally happy again.

**1 YEAR LATER**

_**From the perspective of Nick Ramos**_

I walked into my house, content as ever.

"Annie," I called. "I'm home, got a promotion today. Isabela put me right up with her and Frank. She thinks because I'm the cure I should get a better image." I walked up the stairs. "Annie?" I yelled out again. I walked into my office, and saw her staring out the window.

"Honey, you okay?" I asked. I stood there for a minute. "Look, I know you think I should be in charge, and I know Isabela has done some… questionable things lately. But you need to know that I'm fine where I am. I love you, and that's all that matters." The girl that turned around to face me did not seem like my girlfriend. She had tears in her eyes, and a terrible frown. She began to speak.

"Nick… do you remember the lab back in Los Perdidos? You know the one that Isabela was trapped in." I stood for a second, confused.

"Yeah…" I began. "Why?" Annie whimpered a little.

"Well, apparently that underground lab managed to survive the bombing." Makes sense, I guess. It was under that warehouse, which was pretty sturdy, not to mention the tough walls the lab itself had. "Dad went in there, trying to find any remnants of Hemlock's plans. And he found a broken laptop there." Now I was interested.

"So he…fixed it? And sent it to you?" She nodded, and held out the laptop. I took, it opened it, and a screen was already projecting. I clicked play, and watched Isabela convince Mallon to cause the outbreak. Instead of letting Mallon hunt me down, she caused the outbreak, killed thousands of people, to get to me before she did. So that she could have the power.

I stared blankly at the screen.

"Oh my God."


	5. Chapter 5

"Ah, shit," I said, looking down at the block, completely filled with zombies. Vicious, evil zombies. I thought I would never have to see them again. Then I heard running behind me.

"Nick!" Annie yelled. "There's too many! We've gotta find dad!"

"No!" I screamed back. "If we leave, they'll just spread. I can end this, now! This will NOT be another Los Perdidos!" Annie was getting angrier.

"Look at all of them, Nick! There's at least a thousand! There IS no going back. If you go in there, you'll die!" She sounded pissed, but I knew it was to protect me. I looked around, looked at Pleasure Plaza, one of the many mini entertainment areas of Paradise County, the biggest entertainment center in America. Now overrun with zombies. Because of me.

"Shit," I said. "Okay, let's go."

**1 MONTH EARLIER**

"Oh my God."

My mind was scrambled. My brain was fried. _Isabela? _It wasn't Hemlock…it wasn't Mallon. This whole time…SHE was the one behind Los Perdidos. They each had their own motives… but none of it would have happened if Isabela hadn't convinced her. If she hadn't been looking for me…

I sat down, a put my head in my hands.

"It's all my fault," I said. Annie immediately protested.

"Nick, please. Don't say that. You're the _cure_. The zombies are gone because of you. Infected people are now free. We'll get Isabela for this, but you need to know it isn't your fault."

I didn't want to believe that Isabela was behind it. Mallon was searching for me, she wouldn't have found me… I would have realized my immunity eventually. But Isabela needed it right then, because if she didn't, she wouldn't have gotten she credit for it. She manipulated everyone to fit her needs. To be a hero. I knew there was something off about her. When the cure came out, she took full leadership. She created the company, The Keyes Foundation, gave out free cures to all, and became a celebrity. I was recognized heavily, but not nearly as much as her. Then, she became greedy. She acted like she was in control of everything, and really, she was. It brought a lot of hatred to her name, as well as mine.

"We have to get this out," I said. "The people need to know." But Annie disagreed.

"Do you know what that will do, Nick?" She asked. "People will go nuts. Your company will crumble. We worked so hard to get where we are." I sighed.

"That doesn't matter," I began. "People need to know the truth. She needs to pay for what she did." I thought for a moment. "I know, if it weren't for her we wouldn't be here. I'd still be a lousy mechanic; you'd still be… infected. We would have never…" I put my head down. "… But I would have eventually realized my immunity. There were other ways she could have done it. But because of her greed, and her desire to be a hero, she was willing to sacrifice thousands of lives to get to me quicker." Annie stared for a few moments.

"Okay," she said.

We made a new youtube account, titled 'TheTruth', and uploaded the video. Then we sent it to the Channel 6. We sat and watched, as the video garnered thousands of views within hours. I got a call from Isabela.

"Nick! What the hell is going on?" She asked angrily. I held the phone, silently. "Your secret's out Isabela. You're finished." I hung up. I forgot how smart she was. And that's why releasing that video was the worst mistake I ever made.


	6. Chapter 6

The courthouse was filled. Everyone wanted to see Isabela. Everyone wanted to their savior; the woman who created the cure, pay. Pay for murdering thousands to get to it. Annie and I were in the crowd, not up front. We didn't want to have to look at her, to see her face shouting the expression 'betrayal' into our eyes. Neither did Frank or Chuck, or Stacey, who had successfully brought CURE back together as a group of celebration, not protest. Frank felt broken; confused that Isabela would do such a terrible thing. He didn't expect it after all the things she had done for mankind. He was standing in the back of the courthouse, leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Chuck stayed at the hotel.

"Court is now in session," The judge said.

We weren't dressed very formally. I was wearing a black sweatshirt and jeans, sleeves rolled up, really my average look when I wasn't working. Annie had mostly abandoned her gothic look, probably because of returning to a normal life with her family. She had dark blue jeans and her black leather jacket over a grey shirt. She still had the black highlights—which I liked. As the judge made the sentence, I leaned in. I heard him reveal a life sentence. It could have been capital punishment, but I think her strongly contributing to the cure got on the judge's good side. As the police in the room got up to take her away, she stood and turned, facing directly into my eyes. She was furious at me before, but now all I saw was a calm smile. Then, one of the cops started coughing.

"Jesus… what the hell…" The cop mumbled as his coughing got continuously louder. Frank was in the back of the room, and he knew what was happening.

"EVERYONE GET OUT OF HERE NOW!" He screamed. But it was too late. The cop dug his teeth into the nearest bystander. Isabela suddenly pulled out a knife and jabbed the other cop, grabbed the keys, and ran. I got up and went after her.

"You're not getting away!" I yelled, running through the courthouse. As I powered through, I saw more and more people getting up and eating each other. _That bitch released the bees somehow, _I thought. I turned.

"Annie! Get the hell out of here! Find Chuck!" I grabbed the judge's gabble (Who was long gone at that point) and smashed a zombie's skull, then powered through the doors. Isabela was already in a car. I ran to mine and drove after her. We were in a small town just outside of Paradise County, a huge entertainment center in Arizona. It was almost twice as big as Los Perdidos, with five entertainment "towns" each with a different theme, with a giant open field area in the middle. Of course, that's where she went. That's also where we were all staying for the weekend before the trial. She drove right into Pleasure Plaza and into a lot in between buildings. I jumped out of my car and sprinted after her, all the way to the rooftop. And when I got there, Isabela was standing on the edge, holding a large case of queens, tons of them. Enough to begin a full scale outbreak.

"Isabela, please don't do this!" I pleaded. But her mind was set.

"This is YOUR doing, Nick." She said. Clearly she was insane at this point. Insane with revenge and anger.

"NO!" I screamed as Isabela dropped the case to the street. She then pulled out some kind of object, I think it was a rock, and threw it at my head. I tumbled to the ground and watched her disappear into the darkness as I lost consciousness.

When I woke up again, all I could hear was screaming. Screaming, growling… I got up and ran to the edge of the roof. "Ah, shit," I said, looking down at the block, completely filled with zombies. Vicious, evil zombies. I thought I would never have to see them again. Then I heard running behind me.

"Nick!" Annie yelled. "There's too many! We've gotta find dad!"

"No!" I screamed back. "If we leave, they'll just spread. I can end this, now! This will NOT be another Los Perdidos!" Annie was getting angrier.

"Look at all of them, Nick! There's at least a thousand! There IS no going back. If you go in there, you'll die!" She sounded pissed, but I knew it was to protect me. I looked around, looked at Pleasure Plaza, one of the many mini entertainment areas of Paradise County, the biggest entertainment center in America. Now overrun with zombies. Because of me.

"Shit," I said. "Okay, let's go."

We headed down the alley when I saw a bloodied dagger at the end. I picked it up, and duct taped it to my gable, my newest creation.

"Always the show off," Annie said.

"I always keep some duct tape on me," I replied, and we headed to the hotel across the county, where we saw Chuck last.


	7. Chapter 7

I pulled the knife out of the zombie's skull, with surprisingly little effort. I had gotten a lot stronger sense Los Perdidos, even though it was only a year ago. We were halfway across the fields separating all the different areas of the county.

"Hey, you okay?" I heard Annie behind me.

"Yeah," I replied. "I just… I'm just processing everything, that's all." God, Paradise County? This place was built to celebrate the end of zombies. Now it's filled with them. How ironic. Annie caught up to me and held my free hand. "Thanks," I said, smiling. I needed Annie, she was the closest thing to a family I have. I had never heard from Rhonda and Gary… I had come to the conclusion that they were gone. Annie was all that was left. When I first saw her, it was just a crush but… she was everything to me, fighting through those hordes of flesh eaters, she was my only purpose. And she still is. My thought process was interrupted by a sudden flaming object coming towards me.

"Annie, look out!" I screamed as I shoved her away from me. I jumped out of the way of the Molotov just in time, feeling the hot air brush past me.

'_The biker gang?' _was my first thought. But it wasn't them.

I saw a man walking towards me, in a full body suit. He was wearing some kind of hazmat suit, but black instead of yellow. And he had Molotov's. A LOT of them.

"ZOMBIE!" He screamed. "You're… you're not gonna kill me! Not like my friends…" He started putting his hands into his heads quivering. "So much… so much fire… and blood… a lot of that… no…" he looked up. "I WILL KILL EVERYLAST ONE OF YOU VERMIN!" He got another Molotov ready.

"No, man, we're not zombies!" I pleaded. But he was too far gone. I had seen people like him before. Normal survivors, turned to psychopaths in the presence of the outbreak. Annie said I had been out for a few hours, so the outbreak was probably four hours in. You may think that's not long enough, not long enough to lose everything you love and succumb to the outbreak… then become the outbreak. But it's not.

"DIE!" He screamed, throwing another Molotov in my direction. I dodged it, and tried to jump him before he could throw another flaming bottle of whiskey at my face.

"Too bad I don't drink," I said as I tackled him to the ground. "Pull yourself together!" He focused his eyes on me, staring for a few moments.

"Zombies don't talk," he muttered. I figured that was it, and I let him go. He slowly got up, confused. I turned to get Annie, who was still recovering from the shove I gave her earlier. But then I had a knife cross my throat, warm with blood. "A mutation…" he began. "Yes… a mutation! I KNEW IT!" He began maniacally laughing as I tried to pull myself free but to no avail.

"Don't do this…" I whispered. I was not a very religious person, but in the few seconds following I desperately tried to hope to any higher being to keep Annie safe. Good thing I had my own protectors. I heard a gunshot, then a whistling sound as it whisked by the back of my head, right into the man's skull. He fell to the ground, motionless. _Poor bastard, _I thought. I turned around to see Frank West holding the gun up. He put it to his side, and placed it behind his jacket.

"Yeah, thanks for the help before," he said sarcastically. "Really, thanks." I smirked.

"You're Frank West," I said. "I knew you could handle yourself."

"I'm an old man, kid," he said with a groan. Annie walked beside me.

"Nick went after Isabela, he couldn't let her get away," she said. "It's my fault, I should have stayed. I'm sorry."

Frank smiled. "You're less stubborn than your father," he said.

"Speaking of which," I said. "We need to find him. The hotel is in the Golden Alley, not far from here. We need to go."

Paradise County, what an amazing place it was. Originally called New Fortune, the replacement of Fortune City and an omega to Fortune's End, once the cure was created it received a complete overhaul and became the city that celebrates the "end of the dead". There were five mini-towns: Pleasure Plaza, Golden Alley, the Bronze Strip, Little Willamette, and MarketVille. Pleasure Plaza was the main entertainment area. Restaurants, strip clubs, the local stadium, and some other stuff. Golden Alley was more of a history of zombies, with a museum, gift shops, and a theater with reenactments, basically everything that anyone would ever want to know about the history of zombies. The Bronze Strip was a long strip filled with casinos and the like, as homage to Fortune City. Little Willamette, well you can guess what is was: this was the living area for people who chose to build a life here. The town was a near perfect replica of the town of Willamette, but down sized. The mall was there, which was a complete replica in every way. Every brick was put in to place to make sure that it was authentic. Finally, MarketVille was the main stores area, filled with different shops and mini malls. They also replicated a Wrench O' Rama here, in my honor (stupid, I know). It truly was a magnificent place, ruined by Isabela.

"How are you holding up?" I asked Frank. He knew what I meant, and hung his head. "I'm sad," he said. "For the first time in a year, I'm actually sad. I knew her for so long… I trusted her."

"We did too," Annie added. "She helped me and Nick get that house, get a decent life. But it was just to make her look like some kind of saint."

We entered the hotel, completely ridden of zombies.

"Weird…" I said. I wasn't expecting Chuck to still be in the room, but we checked anyway. The room was void of anything interesting. "Damn," I said, kicking a chair over. I turned to Annie who was tearing up.

"God, I hope he's okay…" she said. I put my hands on her shoulders.

"We'll find him. I swear," I said. But in the corner of my eye, I saw a scrawled bloody note. "What the hell," I said, inching close to it. The note was poorly written.

'IF YOU WANT TO FIND THE TRUTH, LOOK FOR THE WEAK POINT' was written, with a photo of the mall at Little Willamette attached at the bottom.

"That's dad's handwriting," Annie said.

What was he trying to tell us?

**CHAPTER 0 COMPLETE**


	8. Chapter 8

_(Authors note: Okay, here's the idea. The first four chapters were the prologue, 5, 6 and 7 were all Chapter 0. Now Chapter 1 will begin. I don't know how long each "Chapter" will be, nor do I know how many Chapters I will make. I'll try to post 1 new chapter every week. It's going to work like any Dead Rising video game, I intend to have the "big revelation" or whatever, plus Overtime and all that. Keep reading to find out what happens!)_

**PARADISE COUNTY, ARIZONA**

**MAY 18, 5:00 PM**

**7 HOURS POST OUTBREAK**

Little Willamette, was really, little Willamette. Like, you know, overrun with zombies. The whole county was huge; it took a good hour to get to the mall from the hotel, we went through three cars and more zombies than you could count. It truly had gone full scale. The military had already blockaded the entrances, and announced on the radio that an update would arrive "soon". At least they weren't trying to kill us.

"Damn," Frank said. We gazed at the entrance plaza, the first area in the mall. None of us had ever visited the place before everything went to shit. He approached the wall to the side of the doors, and slowly moved his hands against the bricks. "It really is just like the real thing," he continued. I could see his eyes fill up, not with tears, but with memories. His fantasies were soon interrupted by Annie.

"Look, I know this is a big memory lane thing, Frank," she began. "But my dad is out there and we have to find him." Frank looked up, with a relaxed face. He was pretty old. Only 52, but all those years with Zombrex got to him. His hair was greyed out for the most part, with only some black areas toward the front of his hairline, which was also greatly retracted. He still dressed sharp, as he always did: tan khaki pants, with a button up shirt, dark overcoat, and black loafers.

"Well looks like you won't have much trouble," he said, pointing towards the innards of the mall. It was void of zombies, with only a few stragglers walking around.

"Wow," I said. "Guess they didn't like it in here, huh?"

"No," Frank said. "Someone had closed this place off until a little while ago. Otherwise this place would be filled with corpses, dead or not." He turned to me. "And don't say 'they didn't like it in here'. That's just plain stupid." He continued walking into the mall, towards Paradise Plaza. "I think I know where the 'weak point' is."

Why would Chuck leave us a clue, what was he trying to do? We were nervous, but also confused. Frank approached the door to the security room, but it was welded shut. Frank's expression dropped to a frown.

"They couldn't have known…" he began. Sighing, he removed his hand from the handle.

"Great," Annie said. "Now how the hell are we going to get in there?"

"It's okay," Frank said. "I know another way. But neither of you are going to like it."

"Are you sure about this, Frank?" I asked, poking my head through the air duct.

"If this place was built identical to the real mall, then this leads right to the security room," He said, trying to sound assuring.

We crawled through the ducts, in complete and utter darkness. The only comforting sight was Annie, directly in front of me. Hey, she's my girlfriend, you can't blame me.

Frank suddenly came to a halt. He felt his hand around the duct, trying to find a sign. He hand suddenly stopped, and he clenched his fist, pushing it through the door and opening it to a bright light. We all scrambled out of the duct, landing on the ice cold floor. Annie and I slowly got up, but Frank remained on the ground. We were trying to figure out what was wrong with him, but he pushed us away.

"Just a lot of memories," He said. "It's nothing." He slowly got up onto his feet, brushing the dust off his jacket. "You two check the back," he said. "See if the rooftop entrance is open, then check the other rooms. I'll look around here."

There was nothing on the rooftop. Just a blank, open space.

"We're wasting time," Annie said. "What if he's…?" She turned away from me and crossed her arms, head down. I walked behind her, and placed my hand on her shoulder.

"We're going to find him, and we're going to get out. I swear." She turned to me.

"That's what I'm afraid of," she started. "He led us into this, this puzzle. Right before the trial, he refused to go, was avoiding eye contact, and now he's nowhere to be found." She walked in place. "Hell, he's the one who found the evidence in the first place, from one random "exploration" in Los Perdidos."

"You're not saying—" I began. She looked up at me, tears in her eyes.

"What if it's not just Isabela," she said. "What if he's behind this?" She whimpered, and walked towards me, wrapping her arms around me.

"No," I said. "No, he wouldn't. It wouldn't make sense." But the scary thing was, it did. I couldn't accept that though.

"We're going to find him. We're going—"

"WHAT THE FUCK!?" We heard from downstairs.

"Shit," I said, running down the stairs. We made our way through the security room to see Frank, on his knees. With a zombie in front of him. It was propped up on the wall opposite to the security room door. It was African American, had a yellow button up shirt, black tie. His stomach area was ripped apart. Frank was in front of him, whimpering.

"What the fuck…" He muttered. I walked over to the zombie.

"Did you know him?" I asked. He turned his head up to me.

"No," He said. "But whoever's doing this, they…" He was trying to process. "…Whoever's behind this took a look alike of my friend and put it in his outfit. My friend that died in Willamette, fifteen years ago. He was a DHS agent, he… he didn't deserve what happened to him." He got up. "AND SOMEONE IS PLAYING SOME SICK GAME!" He yelled out into the open. "I only told one reporter about that agent," he said. "And then some close friends, including Chuck." Frank walked over to the body, and pulled a note out of pocket. "The weak point…" he muttered. He unfolded the note, finding another poorly written prophecy.

"'DON'T LOOK BACK NOW, AND DO NOT FEAR. THIS JOURNEY ENDS IN FORTUNE.'"

Frank looked at us, then back at the note.

"Dammit," he said.

**CHAPTER 1 COMPLETE**


End file.
